


The Weighing Scales

by spockandawe



Series: Feasted On For All To See [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Dubious Morality, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Manipulation, Extremely Dubious Consent, Hate Sex, Hatred, M/M, Mind Manipulation, Mnemosurgery, Self-Destruction, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-24 22:17:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14364846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spockandawe/pseuds/spockandawe
Summary: Your new life is everything Starscream promised and more. And that's the problem, isn't it. You remember having this home. Not— Not this home. Starscream's lie is that your old apartments, right in the government building, were wrecked by Bruticus before he was taken down. These are the new apartments Starscream procured while the other damage is being repaired. You can remember the home that he's making up.Except you can remember your real home too. You can remember it twice. You remember Onslaught consulting you as he chose the most effective base of operations to hunt down sources of unrest in the city. To serve Starscream. Obviously. But you can remember picking it out as the cheapest option you could find and managing to beg and threaten your landlord—a Decepticon managing to do better thanyourteam, of course—until he agreed to shave a few more shanix off your rent.





	The Weighing Scales

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for two mechs basically using each other for emotional self-harm, where the self-hate edges towards suicidal ideation at points. Nobody involved in this story is okay, or making good decisions.
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> [Tumblr](http://spockandawe.tumblr.com/post/173084465011/the-weighing-scales-spockandawe-the)

Your new life is everything Starscream promised and more. And that's the problem, isn't it. You remember having this home. Not— Not this home. Starscream's lie is that your old apartments, right in the government building, were wrecked by Bruticus before he was taken down. These are the new apartments Starscream procured while the other damage is being repaired. You can remember the home that he's making up. Except you can remember your real home too. You can remember it twice. You remember Onslaught consulting you as he chose the most effective base of operations to hunt down sources of unrest in the city. To serve Starscream. Obviously. But you can remember picking it out as the cheapest option you could find and managing to beg and threaten your landlord—a Decepticon managing to do better than _your_ team, of course—until he agreed to shave a few more shanix off your rent.  
  
All your memories of uncomfortable evenings in the apartment, trying (failing) to coax your team into finding steady work instead of relying on stray odd jobs, it's all overlaid with memories of secret meetings with Starscream, staying up late and talking strategy with Onslaught. Having a relaxing night in nursing a bottle of engex with Brawl and Vortex instead of trying not to yell when you find out they've wasted a day's wages, _again,_ on engex they're going to finish before the night is over.

You can remember pawning off the one or two personal items each of you had when you came to the planet, and now the others just think those things were lost in the destroyed apartments. You can remember just how little money you got for each of them. Brawl had been keeping that little model tank for years and years. You lied to him about how much you were able to sell it for. But no, now he cheerfully doesn't care it's gone, because accidents happen and Starscream's money will pay for a new one, and that's all that matters, isn't it.

But the worst part, the very worst part, is what Starscream has done for your living quarters. He’s all apologies and you don’t know how your team can possibly _believe_ _him_ — He tells you that oh _dear,_ with all the destruction and the recent influx of colonial government workers, they seem to be short on space. You’ll have to live two to an apartment for a while.

You didn’t see it coming, or you would have tried to think of some excuse to get out of it, whatever stupid reason, _anything._ But you’re caught completely by surprise. Your mask is locked tight over your face, but Starscream _knows,_ he has to know, from the way he’s smirking at you. It’s only a nanoklik or two before you recover and try to frantically sort through the possibilities— But Onslaught is already telling Brawl and Vortex to pair up. You can feel his optics on you. You can feel them. But all you can do is stare helplessly at Starscream until he turns and saunters away, still smiling.

It’s the worst. This is the actual worst case scenario. The day has already been. Unbearable. Ever since you woke up. Ever since Onslaught woke up. Ever since he put his hand over yours. You’d spent hours agonizing over how things would play out. You’d almost convinced yourself it could be like. Like it was before. It wasn’t everything you wanted, but you’d been able to trust everything you did have. And then Onslaught put his hand on yours and swept that all away and you knew it was going to be more painful than anything you’d imagined when you agreed to it.

You can’t trust this— Whatever this is. You wanted to believe Starscream when he said it would just be a nudge, just enough to make him notice you. Even though you know Starscream lies, even though you know that’s just what he _does._ It’s so tempting, even now. But the way Onslaught looks at you, the way you can feel him thoughtfully _watching._ The quiet pressure of his attention and interest. How long have you wanted this? And now it’s happening and you can’t let yourself trust it. But even more than that, Onslaught can’t trust _you._ He did. Does. And this is how you repaid that. You can’t even let him know he can’t trust you anymore, or you’ll have destroyed everything you did this for in the first place.

Things are bad enough in company. You’re always in motion, drifting away from Onslaught, to the other side of the group, putting people between you and him. He doesn’t chase you, exactly. But he gravitates to you. Slowly, consistently, always. When you realize what you’re doing, you have to choke back hysteric laughter that this is the exact mirror of the dance you did for so, so long, constantly reorienting yourself on him, taking the opportunity to move to his side and just be… available. And now that all you want to do is run, the game has flipped. He isn’t doing anything wrong, and you’re free to go wherever you want, but no matter where you go, you feel cornered.

But then you’ve finished setting up your new apartment, you’ve finished helping with the last stupid, trivial things you could think of to do for Brawl and Vortex. Night is creeping up on you and Onslaught is waiting right there, and you don’t exactly have anywhere to go except your own apartment. Maybe into the city-- You almost go for it, until you realize that if Onslaught comes, it’s too close to the dream, just the two of you having drinks, nobody else, nobody but the two of you together, and. _No._

You go back to your apartment. You feel so numb you can barely think. If you can manage to somehow waste a cycle on, on _anything,_ you can claim to be exhausted and head to recharge early. And then you only need to get through the next day. And the next. And the one after that.

You can’t do this, you _can’t,_ it’s going to kill you. But you didn’t have any other _option—_

And your sad excuse for a plan, the very best plan you can come up with, is… pretending to read a datapad. It’s pathetic. You aren’t even processing the words in front of you as you scroll through the document. All you’re aware of is the sound of Onslaught as he quietly moves around the apartment. You can hear him pause every so often. When you can’t stand it any longer and look up just enough to see him on the edge of your vision, he’s looking at you.

It isn’t long before he sits on the couch beside you. You don’t react. No, that’s worse— You look up at him and smile, but it’s awkwardly late. And you realize moments later that your mask is still closed. It’s been closed all day, and you can’t stand the idea of opening it right now. What would Onslaught see on your face?

He just watches you, quiet and thoughtful. You should. Say something. He reaches up with one hand to touch the side of your faceplate. It’s nothing unusual, no more intimate than you’ve been for thousands, millions of years. You still have to suppress the urge to flinch away. And Onslaught still hasn’t said a word.

But finally he breaks the silence. “What’s wrong?”

What’s _right?_ Your self-control is starting to slip, you can’t do this. How are you supposed to hold things together when he’s—After you let Starscream—

You force yourself to speak, force your voice to hold steady. “It’s just been a complicated day.”

He laughs softly. “It has.”

And that’s the end, right? The conversation is over, you don’t have anything else to say, he can go and take care of, of whatever. Onslaught can always find something to do, he’s always planning, always thinking ahead, the difficult part is dragging him away from that strategy and making him take time just for himself. But right now, his undivided attention is on you.

You do your best to turn back to the datapad. You haven’t even managed to focus your optics before his hand is on yours again, pushing the datapad lower. You’re still staring at the space where the datapad used to be.

“You don’t need to worry about that right now,” he says.

You’re frozen. You’ve forgotten how to move, how to think, how to talk.

Before you can pull yourself back together, his hand is on your face, gently turning you to face him. You force out, “Just trying to get back on top of things before we start working again, that’s all. Wouldn’t want to waste much more time before getting back to work.”

You can hear the smile in his voice, and you hate yourself for learning to read all his little emotional cues so well. “So conscientious.” His hand is still on your cheek, and all you can do is look straight into his optics. You can feel the heat of his chassis, so close to yours. All you can think about is those years of stupid, naive fantasies about how how he’d look at you like this, how he’d touch you, how he’d _keep_ touching you-- Your frame is running hot, and you hate yourself. His thumb brushes over your plating. “You ought to make sure you’re at full strength before you overextend yourself.”

This is— No, _no,_ you can’t do it, you think you’re going to purge your tanks if you play along with this. What are you supposed to _do?_ Even if the mnemosurgeon overwrote his recent memories, he still has millions of years of memories where it must be pitifully, shamefully obvious how long you’ve been in love with him.

 _You can’t do this._ You push up off the couch and away from his hand. Somehow you manage a single laugh. Somehow you manage to choke off the hysteric laughter that tries to follow. “Don’t worry, I’m just making sure we— details, just locking down all the details so we have a nice easy start to things. And speaking of which, I need to go find Starscream.”

He starts to climb to his feet. “I can go with you.”

If you laugh again, you’re never going to be able to stop until it burns out your spark and kills you. You make an expression that’s something like a smile. And realize your mask is still closed. “No, no, it’s completely trivial— Duty shifts, just finding out if he has a planned schedule or we need to work it out on our own. That’s all, nothing important, nothing that matters—”

You edge towards the door as you speak. You’re not lying well. You’re not lying well enough to fool a fresh little newspark, never mind _Onslaught._ By the time you reach the door, he’s just standing there quietly watching you. He doesn’t pursue, but you flee.

Once you’re in the hallway, it feels a little less like your spark is collapsing in on itself. A little. But what do you do now? Your first thought is to visit Brawl and Vortex. But you’ve done the same thing to them too, haven’t you. The only difference is that nobody forced them to love you. You’ve still betrayed your whole team and somehow you’re the one who’s standing here feeling sorry for yourself.

You have to see Starscream now. Or at least try. Even though you’d rather see literally any other mech in the galaxy. But you’re being pathetically suspicious, and you have to imagine Onslaught will somehow find a way to infer that you didn’t meet with Starscream. That’s one little lie that opens the door for him to realize the larger lies, the ones you’ve already told him, and the ones you have to keep telling him for as long as this lasts.

You’re going to purge your tanks if you keep focusing on this. You need to move, you need to _leave—_ But where are you supposed to go? This is your home now. Your home where you’ll only draw more suspicion if you avoid sleeping in your own berth for no clear reason at all.

So you go to see Starscream. What else are you supposed to do? You don’t want to. _You don’t want to._ But the only thing you want less in the universe is to go back to your apartment right now.

It still takes ages to force yourself to do it. Up the one hallway. Turning and going down another because no, no, you‘re not going to deal with Starscream, you _won’t._ Taking another hallway back because you don’t have any other options, this is all you have left. You shouldn’t know where any of these hallways go at all. Reminder after reminder after reminder of how he’s overwritten your memories. Your frame is still running shamefully hot, even now. You can hear your fans. You haven’t cooled off at all, even after wasting all this time.

Maybe if you turn around now, Onslaught will be asleep—? You can’t even finish that thought, of course he won’t be. And you’ll be risking him knowing you never saw Starscream. That’s the most important issue, right? No, of course not. You hate thinking it, you hate realizing this about yourself, but if you go back now, and if he wants you— You aren’t going to be able to say no.

That’s the thought that finally forces you stop circling, and you drag yourself to Starscream’s door. You stand there for a few minutes without managing to do anything more. Does he have cameras out in the hallway? Probably. Can he see you out here right now, acting this pathetic? Probably. You don’t know if it even matters anymore. It does, everything matters, especially when you have so little leverage (no leverage). It takes you too long to finally reach out to the door keypad to request access.

There isn’t an immediate response, and for just a moment you wonder if maybe you’ll get lucky. It’s late, maybe Starscream is already in recharge— No such luck. The moment you think that, the door opens, and he’s standing there, looking just as awake as he did when he came sweeping into the medbay earlier to talk about how _wonderful_ it was to see your team back on their feet.

He lets the moment stretch too long, leaving you standing there without any idea of what you can say or do or, or anything. You’d hate him for it, except you don’t know if it’s possible to hate him any more than you already do.

Finally, he turns and steps back into his quarters, leaving his back to you. With an insulting flick of his wings. Just in case you failed to catch his meaning. You’re still frozen. He looks over his shoulder and says, “Coming?”

You don’t know how you do it, but you force yourself into motion. Stumbling, uneven steps, but enough to follow him. Starscream keeps his back to you as he saunters across his apartments, leading you to a sitting room. There’s a couch and a low table with a scattered pile of datapads and a barely-touched cube of energon.

Starscream sits on the couch. He takes his time, crossing one ankle across his other knee, putting his hands behind his head, leaning back. It’s a show, you know it’s a show. He gives you a slow, insulting look from head to pede, and it’s all a show, and you still can’t remember how to talk. You’re looming over him and you look like an idiot while he acts as casual as anything. You force yourself to sit, but all you can do is perch all stiff and awkward on the edge of the couch.

And you still can’t remember how to talk. The silence stretches out until Starscream sighs and says, “Well?”

“You ruined everything.” It bursts out of you, stupid and badly worded and you hate everything. It’s still true.

Starscream doesn’t argue. The corner of his mouth turns upward, and he says, “In fact, I think you’ll find that _you_ ruined everything.”

Your voice is locked up too tight to speak again.

He goes on, “What, you’re unhappy with this arrangement? Remarkable. I do believe it was less than a day ago when you chose it in the first place.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” you grit out. “You didn’t give me a choice.”

“I think you’ll find that you had the freedom to make all sorts of choices.” His smile is spreading wider and wider and you hate him so much you can’t ventilate. “You made quite a number of choices all on your own. All of which allowed me to offer you a single choice myself. I wouldn’t want to assume anything, of course, but it is beginning to sound like you’re blaming _me_ for every poor decision than led you to that point.”

“You—”

“It does sound like you’re not very happy with this outcome. Luckily, you’ll be able to take that into consideration the next time a situation like this comes up. I do wish you the best of luck in the future.”

He— You have to shut off your optics and take a moment to force yourself back under control. Another moment. You very nearly manage to keep your voice steady when you say, “I can’t do this.”

When you boot up your optics again, his smile is cold and utterly unsympathetic. “How unfortunate. Tell me, how long do you think Onslaught will last before he destroys himself? I give it, oh… two years, three at the most. Do you want to lay any bets on it?”

You almost go for him. You start to, before you force yourself still. His smile doesn’t flicker. All you can do is look helplessly at him. Your spark feels like it’s being choked out of your chest. You can’t _do this._

Before you can stop yourself, you say, “We’d kill you before we left—”

Starscream bursts into laughter. “This is too good, it really is. You’ve just been given everything you ever wanted. And now you’re throwing a tantrum because you didn’t get it _right._ ”

“That’s untrue, and you know it.”

“Is it, though?” He stays right where he is, leaned back, casual, and utterly unconcerned, and you know it’s all an act and you hate him for it. “Please, go ahead and tell me how I’m wrong.”

“I’m not playing this game. It’s because of the lie, it’s because the whole thing is a _lie—”_

Starscream nods, and his words just _drip_ with sympathy. “Of course. It must be so difficult living such an honorable, forthright life and being coerced into breaking into a government facility to steal a dangerous artifact. I’m appalled that Onslaught could have done that to you. At least you can rest easy, knowing you never once broke faith with the mechs who chose to employ and trust you.”

You’re going to kill him. You’re going to do it. No matter what else happens, you won’t be able to die satisfied unless you can at least take him down with you. But for now, you try to force yourself into calmness. “You know none of this would have happened without you in the first place. If we’d had the employment we’d already been promised, not a single piece of this would have played out.”

“You certainly do seem to have all the answers. Just imagine what you could accomplish if you only had them without the benefit of hindsight.”

“I mean it,” you press. “If we’d had the jobs Onslaught negotiated for in the first place— Swindle wouldn’t have gone wreaking havoc on Caminus.”

Starscream makes a scornful noise.

“ _Fine,_ even if he had— Killing him would have been understandable if he’d gone behind your back like that, even Onslaught would have understood. But it would have been a lot less likely if he’d had a steady job. Less reason to go trying violent robbery when you’ve got an actual income.”

“Yes, we all know how trustworthy Swindle was when it came to money.”

You grind your dentae. “Less reason for Swindle to take a combiner to Caminus. If you’d held up your end of the employment bargain, _and_ you didn’t kill him, there’s no reason for Onslaught to go looking for revenge. I’m not looking to expose a murder. Primus, there’d be fewer problems for you on every front. No diplomatic incident over invading a colony. No cross-world combiner fight. Less unrest in the city. And you would have had a squad of loyal bodyguards who had your back, all that time.”

“True, very true. I would have been able to trust your team to ‘have my back’ almost as much as I’d be able to trust Swindle with an unguarded treasury.”

It’s…. funny. It’s a horrible kind of funny, but you have to laugh. “You did this all to yourself. You realize that, don’t you? If you’d just kept that one promise, none of this mess had to happen. It’s the same thing you’ve been doing for millions of years. You stumbled onto a set of Cybertronians who never had the history to learn what you’re _like,_ and you didn’t change a single thing.”

Starscream is still watching you from where he’s been the whole time, but you don’t think you’re imagining the flat, unamused edge in his optics.

“You ruined everything for yourself _,”_ you tell him. “You cheat someone to get ahead. And when they resent you for it and cause problems in the future, you just play dirtier. You didn’t just throw away a chance to have a team of bodyguards. You’ve done this to everyone. You’ve done this to every single person who ever tried to support you. This isn’t a problem you can work past. It’s only getting worse, you can see that much. And you did it to _yourself._ ”

He’s angry, and he isn’t trying to hide it anymore. And finally, he speaks up. “How clever. Most of us have to make do without such through foreknowledge of how things _would_ have played out. Perhaps if you wanted me to honor that original agreement, you would have rethought a few of those atrocities you took part in over the years. Just think of what you could have had if you hadn’t tethered yourself to a group of mechs with a well-earned reputation for uncontrolled violence. Imagine the conversations I could have with my staff. ‘Remember that time on Delta Pavonis, when Brawl—?’ ‘Oh yes, don’t we all, aren’t you happy to have him standing guard in this room right now?’”

Your plating burns. “That isn’t—”

“—The same?”

“It isn’t justification for you to do _this_ to us!”

Starscream smiles, cold and distant. “Please, with your _remarkable_ powers of foresight, tell me what I should have done once I had the lot of you captured. The amount of damage you did, that’s an issue that would have been possible to overlook. Even a solid attempt at treason, that’s something I can respect. But do you think nobody was injured in that little adventure of yours? Or do they just… not count if they aren’t someone you happen to be personally invested in?”

“We didn’t—” You stumble to a halt.

“Didn’t hurt anyone? That is absolutely incorrect. Did you want to meet any of the unlucky casualties? Though I suppose _see_ is more accurate than _meet—”_

“We weren’t trying to hurt people! That wasn’t what this was about!”

“Fascinating. I don’t know how I could have missed that, what with all the care Bruticus showed. I suppose we’ve all been there, destroying buildings and taking it for granted that they’re entirely uninhabited.”

Your fists clench in your lap. “That was about you. It was about everything you did, and trying to convince yourself that you aren’t to blame won’t do anything to change the way you’ve poisoned your entire future.”

At least Starscream isn’t pretending he isn’t angry. You have legitimate points. You _do._ He’s angry, you’ve said things that got to him, and right now all you care about is making him hurt along with you.

He says, “Since you’ve been so sure about what decisions I _should_ have made at every step in this process, please, inform me what I _ought_ to have done once I had you captured?”

You open your mouth, but he talks right over you.

“Let you all walk free? Was I supposed to keep the details of your little rampage secret when I let you all go, or was I supposed to announce the whole thing to the public and tell them I’m letting you go anyways? And I suppose that after that, I should assume that gesture of goodwill will be enough to persuade Onslaught to drop his little vendetta. And that you won’t be inclined to combine and do even more damage that way. Execute you? It would be quite a noble gesture for you to take responsibility in such a permanent way. And I’m sure your team will all agree with that choice. Or should I have left you to rot in prison? A rewarding way to spend the time, to be sure.” He pauses for effect and taps his chin. “And a direct path to that future where Onslaught destroys himself. Is that what you want to choose?”

“That isn’t the point,” you grit out.

Starscream snaps his fingers. “That’s it. I should have left you all lying brain-dead on medical slabs in the back corner of some insignificant medbay. The _humane_ solution.”

“If your only excuse for doing something cruel is that it was most convenient for you, or that it was the least cruel option, that doesn’t erase the fact that it was _cruel._ ”

His smile is mocking. He doesn’t say anything, but you know what he means.

“And _yes,_ we did unjustifiable things in the war. All of us! But if that’s your only argument, that says a lot more about you than it does about them. Are you saying that nobody can ever decide to _start_ doing the right thing? Or that they shouldn’t ever try to? I think that mostly you’re just saying that _you’re_ never going to. I don’t think that will to surprise anyone who’s familiar with you, but I feel bad for the neutrals who somehow convinced themselves you were going to be any sort of fair leader.”

That hit home. You can see it in his optics. You should be worried about the way he’s smiling at you and drawing himself up, proud and cold and scornful, but all you can feel is sick satisfaction. You’re fine with going down in flames as long as you can hurt him on the way.

Starscream purrs, “I believe I’ve let you distract me from the original purpose of your visit. Do tell me, why are you coming to my quarters alone so late at night, right after your dramatic recovery, right after you’ve been given your own private rooms with a mech clearly besotted with you? I dare say nobody watching the two of you together could have mistaken _his_ intentions—”

Your plating burns. “That’s not—”

“And I don’t think anyone could have any doubts about whether or not he acted on them,” he continues ruthlessly. “If you’re running this hot now, I can’t imagine how obvious it must have been when you left your quarters.”

You keep your mouth tight shut, refusing to take the bait. But that doesn’t stop Starscream.

He leans back in his seat, looking up at the ceiling, smiling and thoughtfully tapping his chin. “So you left your apartment, _clearly_ in this sort of state, and do we think Onslaught would have missed that? Don’t bother answering that question. Now, did you tell him you were running off to find me, or is that information he’s going to have to figure out himself?

You’re going to kill him. You are. No matter what. You don’t care what the other consequences are, you just need him to slip and let his guard down, just one nanoklik, and you’ll do it. They can lock you up forever, they can execute you, but it will have been _worth it._

Starscream is still smiling, and now he watches you sideways from the corner of his optic. “Are you planning to go back home still so clearly… unsatisfied? Tell me, do you think he’ll have gone to his recharge slab, or will he stay up waiting for you to come home to him? I suppose you could go out into the city and find some stranger willing to satisfy your baser needs, but I can’t imagine he’ll take it well when he learns you preferred _that_ to _his_ company—”

Without thinking you grab his plating and wrench him around to face you. For one blinding moment, all you can think of is violence, but you manage, barely, not to act on it. You will. You _will._ But you’re not giving him even a chance of a fair fight. He doesn’t deserve it. You force out, “You need to make this right.”

He doesn’t look impressed. He looks slowly down to your hands, still locked tight on his plating, then back up to your face. You can feel your fingers denting the metal, but he doesn’t react. After letting the silence stretch, he finally says, “Aren’t _you_ bold. And with Onslaught sitting at home waiting for you to come back to his arms, my goodness.”

You shake him. _“Shut up,_ you don’t—”

“So desperate for a good hard frag that you’ll even come to _me._ You won’t accept it from the mech you want, but even though you sit there trying to convince me I’ve done you an unforgivable wrong, you’re still happy to ask me for this. I suppose that would save you the trouble of having to come up with some lie about where you’ve been, but just imagine what Onslaught would _think.”_

He reaches out and runs the fingers of one hand up the plating of your leg, and despite— despite _everything,_ you’re still running hot enough that you can’t manage to hold back a shudder.

Starscream laughs. _“Eager,_ aren’t you.”

You hate him, you hate him, you’ve never hated anything in the universe as much as you hate Starscream right now. And you hate yourself for being so stupidly worked up and desperate you can’t manage to bring yourself to pull away from his hand.

But you shut off your optics and manage to force out, “I know what it’s like to have someone want me around. Who wants to spend time with me. I’m not going to ask you if you do, because we both know you _don’t._ ”

It’s a weak attack, and he doesn’t say anything, he hardly even reacts. But your hands are still locked tight on his plating, and you feel him freeze for just a moment before he goes on.

He dips his fingers into your hip joint and it makes you sick having him touching you, and you know this is revenge for what you said, but you still have to bite your lip hard to stop yourself from moaning. You ought to be ashamed. You _are_ ashamed. But it’s only because— because you spent so long today with Onslaught’s attention on you, being aware of that attention, with him watching you and trying to stay close to you, and imagining the feeling of his hands on you—

You gasp as Onslaught’s— as _Starscream’s_ fingers brush along a sensitive wire, and you realize your imagination is getting away from you again, and you want to purge your tanks. You force your optics online again, because this isn’t Onslaught here with you, it’s not, and even if you’re so desperate you can’t bring yourself to tell him to stop, you aren’t going to lie to yourself either and pretend that this isn’t Starscream.

He’s still smiling as he strokes that same wire. Your hips jerk helplessly with every touch, and he just smirks down at you, cold and awful and _knowing._

You say, “I hate you,” and drag him down into a kiss.

Starscream reacts, meeting the kiss but you think that’s because you took him by surprise, he hesitates and stiffens and for a moment you think he’s going to pull away. But then he leans into you and doubles down instead, biting your lip and hooking his fingers around a cluster of wires in your hip and tugging hard enough the ache in your connectors rides the line between pleasure and pain.

For a nanoklik, you’re afraid you might overload then and there. You have to drag yourself back from that edge with an effort, but you refuse to give him satisfaction that easily. But you don’t know how long you can hang on. You’ve been running hot for so long already, and you can feel your charge ramping up with every touch, and even though you know it’s not for _him,_ none of it is for _him,_ your frame is still reacting to every brush of his fingers.

To distract yourself, you reach around his back, feeling blindly around his wings. It pulls him half on top of you, and you feel him smirk. But then you find what you’re looking for. Your fingers dig into the joint between his wings, and his back arches and he gasps, forgetting the kiss for a moment, pressing his plating up into your hand.

He remembers himself almost immediately, and he glares at you like he wants to threaten you or pretend it never happened, but it did, you _saw._ He takes his revenge by bringing both hands to bear on you. He presses you back into the couch, shifting to sit astride your legs, and works his free hand into your other hip. You fight not to arch off the couch and into him, try not to react at all, try not to _overload._ It’s a losing battle. You try to focus on the kiss, try to focus on finding all the most sensitive spots where his wings meet his back, anything to distract you from the mounting charge and _need._

It doesn’t do you much good. His fingers work deep enough into you to brush against the bearing in your left hip, and you overload. There’s no stopping it. You shake and shake and try not to make a noise, biting your lip so hard you taste energon. Starscream is watching you and you know it. In joints as large as your hips, the charge you’re releasing must be strong enough to almost hurt in his hands and arms, it must be affecting him too and you need to take advantage of that, but you can’t. Your vision glitches out and you can _hear_ Starscream laugh, but you can’t do anything about it.

When the overload finally passes, you realize that it barely took the edge off. It’s infuriating. Getting one overload from Starscream is bad enough, but leaving here with one overload _and_ still running hot is even worse. You’re shaky still, and barely feel like your limbs are coming back under your control, but if you’re stuck with Starscream, you’re going to give at least as good as you get.

When your optics refocus, he’s looking as smug as ever and smiling down at you. “Easier than I thought,” he says.

You don’t snarl at him, don’t react, even though at least of that is that you still feel so unsteady you can barely move. But you do manage to dig your fingers into a seam between his plates, and you can see the way he arches and his mouth falls open. “Easier than I thought,” you echo.

He glares at you, like you can’t feel just how hot he’s running or how loud his fans are, like you can’t tell just how strongly he’s reacting to every touch. Your vocalizer still feels clumsy, and it’s a struggle to remember how to speak, but you’re going to rub every last thing you can in his face. You manage, “Been a while since anyone touched you, I’d say.”

You can feel him stiffen and a corner of your processor worries about what he might do if you pushed him too far, but most of you doesn’t _care._ He opens his mouth, but before he can say a word, you grab one of his wing flaps and flex it in your hands, not very gently. Whatever he wanted to say gets lost, and he gasps, wordlessly.

“I bet it’s not just fragging,” you say. You’re guessing, but you know Starscream, you _know_ what he’s like. “I bet it’s everything. I bet you don’t even have a medic you can trust, because you’ve double-crossed so many mechs you don’t have anyone you can count on to treat you instead of kill you. Do you even have anyone willing to do basic maintenance for you, or are you just _that_ alone?”

For a moment, you think he’s going to kill you. He smiles, frigid and distant, and for half a nanoklik you’re certain you’re about to die. His hands move up your sides, and he isn’t carrying a gun, but he’s always had onboard weaponry, that doesn’t mean anything—

And instead, he buries his fingers in your vents. A loud, shocked noise slips out of you, and Starscream smiles in cold satisfaction. He flexes his fingers, and it’s so deep and so _much_ you can barely think, you weren’t expecting it, weren’t ready.

“I suppose Onslaught's fingers would be larger than mine,” he says, casual and conversational.

Your processor lurches, caught between need and the reminder who this is, who Starscream is and who he _isn’t._

“Just think of how difficult it would be to fit them in all the most sensitive places,” he continues. “Or is that part of the appeal? Is that what you’ve been imagining all day?”

You’re not going to take that bait. You’re not. You grit your teeth and instead try to focus on what you were doing. You get both of your arms around Starscream, get both hands on his wings, and try to ignore how much this feels like an embrace.

It’s not difficult to make him react. He’s too sensitive, even though you can tell he’s trying to hide it. You’re almost certain you’re right. The joints are stiff and his optics flicker when you flex them, or when your fingers press between two sections of plating, or slip into a gap to touch his wires. You’re almost positive you’re right, that nobody’s had their hands on him for _any_ reason for a long time. His wings are so stiff you have to wonder if he’s even using them at all. The little noises he bites back when you flex them— You don’t know his frame as well as you know yours, but those reactions are coming sooner and stronger than you expected. _Good._ You’ll take every advantage you can find, and you hope he’s hating what you do to him as much as you hate what he does to you.

His hands are still working ruthlessly at you, playing with your vents, finding sensitive gaps in your plating, running along the edges of your windows. You’re lucky he can’t reach as much of you with you flat on your back, with one shoulder wedged against the back of the couch. He’s still steadily ramping up your charge, but you’re affecting him as much as he affects you. More. He can harp on how desperate you are for Onslaught, but you’re not the only pathetic, desperate mech here.

Starscream overloads under your hands. He dims his optics, and his face is flat and distant, but he can’t hide the way his frame shakes, or the heat his vents pour off against you. You can’t resist saying, “That’s all it took? It must have been even longer than I thought.”

His optics snap back online and he glares at you, but you keep your hands on his wings, dig your fingers in even harder, keep playing with all the sensitive components and joints you’ve found. You’re not drawing this out for his pleasure, you’re going to make him _see you_ and know that _you’re_ the one doing this to him and seeing him this way.

As the aftershocks start fade, you know he’s going to make you pay for that. You can see it in his optics. But you can’t bring yourself to care. You aren’t thinking that it couldn’t get any worse—you know better than that, especially when you’re dealing with Starscream— but you just can’t force yourself to _feel_ anything about that.

He bends over you, putting his mouth to your neck, and getting his hands under the edges of your shoulder plates. He bites your neck cables once, and you jerk, but he pulls back to hiss, “You’re imagining what Onslaught would do to him if you let him, aren’t you.”

Before you can react, he lowers his head again, and his hands are deep in you, against components that, that never get touched and it’s so hard to think. He breaks away again, adds, “Just think of the ways he would touch you, all the things you want him to do to you. And you wouldn’t even have to _ask,_ you’d only have to stop avoiding him.”

You want to yell at Starscream. You want to tell him to shut up, to not say a word about Onslaught, again, _ever._ You want to hit him, you want a fight, you want to _kill him,_ right here and now, you want it more than you’ve ever wanted anything. But he has you pinned and every time you think to try pushing your way free, he pinches a sensitive wire that leaves you gasping, or bites at a cable, and you can feel the charge practically crawling over your plating, and when Starscream keeps _talking_ like this, it’s impossible to stop imagining Onslaught here, now, with you, his hands on you, the way he’d look at you, everything he’d _say—_

Starscream’s hands are relentless on your wires, and you try to thrash, but he has you helpless. You can barely think, your vision is glitching in and out, and he says, “Just imagine what you could have had with him if you hadn’t sold him out and poisoned everything.”

You jerk in place, yanked out of the fantasy, but it’s too late for your frame and you’re overloading and no no _no—_ You don’t want this, you don’t, nothing you can do to Starscream is worth thinking about Onslaught now, like this, you don’t—

All you can do is lie there and shake until the overload finishes with you. The charge is gone, and you just feel empty, drained, and sick. Starscream is still kneeling over you, and the only thing that makes you feel at all better is that even if he’s trying to put on a face that’s smug and satisfied, he looks almost as bad as you feel. He pushes himself off you, and he can’t hide how heavily he leans on the back of the couch to manage to keep his feet.

“Get out of my quarters,” he says.

You push yourself upright, and only stumble a little when you try to stand. “You deserve this. You deserve everything you’ve ruined for yourself.”

He doesn’t bother answering, which is good because you have no idea what else you’d say.

You’re exhausted, at least. That’s the one good thing you can take away from this. You don’t know how you would have slept otherwise, but now you’re tempted to lie down and recharge right in the middle of the hallways. If not for the new memories Starscream shoved into your processor, there isn’t any chance you’d remember how to get back to your own rooms, but you refuse to be grateful for _any_ of this. It must be obvious that you’ve been— That you just— Anyone who looked at you would have to know what you’ve been doing, but at least it’s late enough that the halls are deserted.

You hesitate outside your door, but there isn’t any good reason for you to put this off. The lights are dimmed in the entryway when you finally make your way inside, and for a moment, you hope that Onslaught is already in recharge.

No such luck. When you enter the berth chamber— only one berth chamber of _course,_ but separate recharge slabs at least— Onslaught is on his slab, but awake. He’s reading something, but looks at you the moment you come in. He doesn’t react, but he goes still and quiet for a long considering moment, and you know him too well to miss it, and you wish you could just keel over dead on the spot and get this over with.

“Welcome home,” he says, carefully neutral. “A productive meeting, I hope?”

You wince, and don’t manage to hide it at all. You can’t meet his optics. You want to die. “Pretty decent,” you say, and it’s a horrible answer, but you don’t think you could manage anything better right now.

Onslaught watches you quietly as you move towards your berth, trying not to act like you’re avoiding looking at him, and doing a horrible job of it. He says, “Better get some rest, it’ll be a busy day tomorrow.”

You badly want to flinch at how deliberately neutral his voice is. You never should have gone to Starscream, you should have gone into the city and picked a fight with some mech at a run-down bar, and however he reacted to that would have been better than how he’s reacting to _this._ You nod instead of saying anything out loud, and lie down on your slab, staring up at the ceiling and not taking even a single glance in his direction.

You’re so exhausted you thought you’d be able to pass out as soon as your were horizontal, but takes you cycles to fall asleep. Onslaught must have gone into recharge by then, he _must_ have. And you don’t look in his direction, not even once. But right up until you finally, finally drift off, you can’t shake the feeling that he’s watching you, still with that same unspoken question and that same quiet, suffocating judgment.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://spockandawe.tumblr.com/post/173084465011/the-weighing-scales-spockandawe-the)


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